The Knox Update

From the Firearms Coalition

Support Your Local Gun Shop

By Jeff Knox

(Manassas, VA, November 19, 2009) The day of the little Mom & Pop gun shop seem to be waning. Even small shops these days are sophisticated, computerized, professionally managed businesses, but those small shops are becoming harder to find. Faced with competition from the internet and mega-retailers like Wal-Mart, Cabelas and Bass Pro Shops, small, dedicated gun shops are finding it more and more difficult to compete. Throw in the added pressure of more frequent and more adversarial oversight by ATF, increased pressure from community zoning boards and taxing authorities, and major shortages in all sorts of guns and ammunition keeping dealer’s shelves bare for months in the midst of the worst recession in decades and it’s easy to understand why a lot of shops are struggling. Continue reading Support Local Shops →

The Knox Update

From the Firearms Coalition

Time to Eradicate VD

By Jeff Knox

(Manassas, VA, November 12, 2009) There has been a close association between sexually transmitted diseases and the military for as long as the two have existed, but the focus of this article is not Venereal Disease, but a different kind of VD that has shocked the military community and the nation. The VD which currently plagues the military and puts our soldiers at grave risk is the policy of Victim Disarmament which has been increasingly prevalent even as laws in the civilian world have been moving in the opposite direction.

While some have pointed to regulation changes during the Clinton administration as the turning point, VD on military bases has been the trend since at least the 1960’s and to a lesser extent even before that. In military society, so heavily steeped in discipline and control, it is only natural that those in power would be inclined to drift in the direction of micro-management and centralized control. Commanders in the modern military seem to have gravitated toward a paternalistic role and that paternalism runs all through the chain of command and seems to apply to all subordinates regardless of their age, rank, or experience.

Continue reading Victim Disarmament – The New VD →

The Knox Update

From the Firearms Coalition

The “No Guns” Insult

By Jeff Knox

(Manassas, VA, October 29, 2009) How does it make you feel when you start to walk into a business and see a “No Guns” sign prominently posted? Are you angry? Offended? Indifferent? How do you react? Do you just turn around and take your business elsewhere? Complain to the management? Just ignore it and go on with your business? The members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League take “No Guns” signs as personally offensive and they let their offense be known – to the business, to fellow VCDL members, and anyone else who’ll listen – or read a web page. VCDL maintains a list of anti-rights Virginia businesses on their web site, www.VCDL.org, and encourages gun owners and rights supporters to avoid these businesses except to let them know that their policy is offensive. VCDL has actively pursued this position for several years while they have simultaneously grown to become the most politically active and effective rights organization in the state.

Continue reading The No-Guns Insult →

The Knox Update

From the Firearms Coalition

Prosecution as Punishment

The Troubling Case of Albert Kwan

By Jeff Knox

(October 8, 2009) People who “have nothing to hide” are often quite happy to answer any questions and consent to any intrusion a police officer might ask of them. They may even invite officers to “look around” if they want to. If you ask a good defense attorney how much you should cooperate with police, particularly when they are conducting an investigation in which you could possibly be a suspect, he will tell you “Not at all.” Don’t give them one word more than you must and never give them permission to search your car, look through your home, or examine any of your guns.

Continue reading Prosecution as Punishment →

The Knox Update

From the Firearms Coalition

Training, Yes – Mandatory, No 

By Jeff Knox 

(October 9, 2009) At the recent Gun Rights Policy Conference in Saint Louis, Missouri I had the privilege of introducing a couple of resolutions that were adopted by the assembly.  The first dealt with the recent attempt by Customs and Border Protection to classify certain "easy open" pocket knives as "switchblades," and subsequent efforts to amend the Federal Switchblade Act.  My resolution suggested that since the problem of switchblades and switchblade crime was primarily a figment of Hollywood and Broadway, and since regulating tools is never a reasonable response to bad behavior, that the rights community should support the outright repeal of the Federal Switchblade Act and any other such laws which are intended to modify behavior by restricting tools.  This resolution passed resoundingly with no real discussion.

My second resolution was a bit more controversial.  In it I suggested that, while training in the safe, legal, and appropriate use of firearms is strongly supported and should continue to be encouraged, government mandated training is anathema to liberty.  I pointed out that there is no statistical evidence that firearms accidents, mistakes, or abuses are any more likely in states requiring little or no training than they are in states with extensive training requirements.  The resolution put on the record the GRPC delegates’ opposition to government-mandated firearms training and their support for rolling back existing requirements where feasible.

Continue reading Training: Yes & No →

Supremes Take a Second Look

By Jeff Knox

(October 2, 2009) On September 30, the Supreme Court announced that they were going to review the Second Amendment case McDonald v. City of Chicago and decide whether the Second Amendment applies at the state and local level.  Application of the Bill of Rights to the states has been a long and convoluted battle with the Second Amendment being the last major article left out in the cold.

As originally proposed and applied, the Bill of Rights was an expression of universal, natural rights, but was considered directly enforceable only on the federal government – except that it was a statement of principles to which all of the states in the union agreed.  Over the years there has been wrangling between states and the federal government regarding recognition of these rights, particularly in the years surrounding the Civil War as debates raged over the definition of a citizen and the rights such citizens enjoyed.  Chief Justice Taney presents these rights of citizenship – privileges and immunities – in a clear and unequivocal fashion in his infamous decision in Dredd Scott v. Sanford.  Part of the debate was over whether a person recognized as a citizen by one state was automatically a citizen of the United States and fully possessed of the privileges and immunities of such citizenship.  Justice Taney described these privileges and immunities to include, “the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.”

Continue reading SCOTUS Takes a Second Look →